It’s been… longer than I intended since I last posted here. I’ve been productive though! While my plans for socks last year ended up postponed until this year, I did make jumpers for both of my children, a blanket for the neighbour’s newborn, and so on. If I comb my main blog, I could probably tell you more specifics.

So yes, socks. I bought that huge batch of sock wool from Wool Warehouse. I’ve made two pairs so far, one of which I am currently wearing. I’ve got the wool for the next pair on my desk, with the first skein caked up and ready to go.

I am also working on scrap blankets… ‘scrap’ being ‘all those toy kits that come with the magazines that I swear I am going to make sometime’, but never do. I cast off a knit one yesterday, and started on a crochet one to contrast with sock knitting.

If you’re here and reading this, there’s probably a good chance that you not only know about my Etsy shop, you’ve probably bought something since the last time I posted. Things have been a bit busy during lockdown, which I’ve appreciated. It’s helped keep me sane and busy. So of course, I found ways to make it all the crazier making…

See these babies? They’re for 1.5mm needles. One. Point. Five. What am I even doing, ha ha. I need to get them photographed and listed, but I’ve not gotten around to it yet. A part of it is I’m not sure that 10 is a big enough set for that sort of tiny lace knitting, or like. I don’t know. I’m probably going to have to try my hand at knitting lace to get the full answers. Eh. I’m probably overthinking everything… I’m good at that.

Right, that’s enough of a dump for now. I know I say every time I pop up I will try to stick around a bit more, and I’m hoping that this’ll be the time it sticks. We’ll see!

<3

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Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I continue to not be doing a great job of posting regularly. My health continues to suck, and it means that I don’t blog like I want to. Sorry about that. I’ve set myself alarms on the weekend to remind me to post, but it’s not been convincing me quite yet. Sigh? Sigh. But hey, I’ve been knitting, honest! There’s hats, there’s socks, there’s… stuff!

Hats Off (or something)

Hats first, then. I was putting together a junk food care package to send to a friend in the States, and I thought she needed a pussy hat. It came too late for the original Women’s March, but that’s okay. It was still well received. And then I had a friend ask if I had enough to make her one atop the first one, and I did! I’m actually going to make myself one as well, but that’s in red (and in wool you’ll see in a bit ;D).

The Year of the Sock

Last year, I went a bit off the deep end making things in advance of our family vacation. I now have quite a few nice knitted tanks floating around the house; you can get the gist of it by reading back if it’s your first time here. This year, I am thinking I want to do a lot of socks. For one, they don’t take as much wool — BUT make a great excuse to buy one-off skeins of fancy wool to use and to love:

The Pretties…

The wool on the left is SweetGeorgia Bulletproof in Tea Party; I bought it for myself as a treat after knitting some snoods for a co-worker to give to her kids at Christmas. It’s what I’m currently knitting with, so keep on for pictures of that. The picture on the right is my lovely wool mail that came in today! I’d been in the market for a yarn bowl for ages, and Knit Picks had the nicest for the best possible price. So of course, I had to make up an order to get free shipping, because that’s how it goes. See that red there? Remember I mentioned a hat? Voila! It will be a ‘pussy’ hat as well, because I like the pattern and red is sort of my best clothing colour. The only problem I forgot in my excitement is that real wool can be scritchy, but I am hoping that it will be fine when it comes to being a hat.

The Socks

As for the Chroma, I hope to turn it into several pairs of socks, all for meeee. I love to knit socks:

I’ve heard people mention Second Sock Syndrome over the years, but it’s never been an issue for me. I use the first sock to map out everything I need to do, and then can zone out and blast through the second. I haven’t decided what pattern I’m going to use for the Chroma yet. The current on the needle is the Tea Party, as mentioned previously (there on left). The pattern I’m using is the first pattern I used to make socks — Just Plain Socks by Talena Winters. It’s a formula pattern, and while it might’ve been a bit into the deep end for my first-ever pair of socks, it felt like a good place to return to now that I have a bit of experience. It’s coming along great, and I suspect that it’s a pattern I will use for years to come.

Existence

I am aware that I have waaaaay fallen off the wagon of blogging here. The Scarlet B is still getting some attention, and I’m managing dailies over at Raeyn[Dot]Com, but here… I just had too much to blog about and it sort of wore me down. I was doing so many projects, and trying to rush through several in advance of our holiday, and… well… our holiday was nice? Our holidays were nice? And here we are in a new year, and I am finally making myself get the ball rolling again here. I’ve been trying for months — ‘just one little post,’ I reasoned with myself over and over again. And yet, I never quite got there. So here it is, finally, me trying to do that.

A Fresh Start

So here, this is me putting all that has come before behind. I will briefly mention that I have recently finished another pair of socks, several hats for The Big Knit, a few toys, and so on. I’ve played lots of games, to include Sims 4, Civilization VI, Pokémon Moon (and Sun in the queue). I got hooked on Stardew Valley for a bit, and will probably go for another spin of that.

What Now?

Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t even decided how often I should be posting here — just that I need to get back into the habit. I rationalise that I can mention what I’m doing day-to-day over at Raeyn[Dot]Com, but keep specifics about gaming and crafting here. I think it’s an outlet that I still need, even if I’ve been slack about it lately. But if I do fall off the wagon again — those blogs are a good place to start to find me, as well as my Instagram account. Yeah, the name changed a bit after I lost control of my old one and they deleted it rather than commit to any level of ‘customer’ service. Sigh.

Anyways, howdy. I’ll try to not be a stranger.

<3

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Since moving to the United Kingdom mumbly-odd years ago (nine), I have found that my sleeves have shrunk to nothing. Oh, I have long-sleeved shirts, and plenty of awesome t-shirts (lately due to TeeTurtle). So making shirts like this gorgeous ribbed shell have suited my need to have a warm torso, but arms free to regulate my temperature.

Now me, I also like my clothing to be fairly plain. ‘Classic’, if you will. So a lot of the patterns that pulled down for my holiday knits were nice simple staple pieces that would hold me in good stead for some time to come, such as this ribbed shell. Plus yanno, I have an ambitious knitting schedule that I ‘need’ to finish before the end of the month, so things that weren’t too complicated were the best use of time.

I’ve already worn this one out once for the village fun day a few weeks ago. In spite of it being hot and muggy (or what passes for hot here; the muggy is world universal ¬¬), it was very comfortable and I was happy to show off my work. I’ve not blocked it yet, being horrible about ever blocking anything, but it seems to fit pretty nicely in spite of that. We’ll see what my dithering brain decides on, because as much as I like it, I wouldn’t mind being able to get a bit more length out of it.

Instagram, Instadrama

I wanted to add, while I am thinking about it, that I am on a new Instagram account, @raeyncrafts. My account got hacked, and in spite of me taking it back and trying to clean up the damage, Instagram found it easier to disable my account rather than actually help me. I’m sort of addicted to Instagram as a medium, so. If you’re on there, follow me, don’t follow me, whatever suits. Pretty much all of the pictures that end up here come from there, so if you want more pictures and less words, then there you go. 😀

Next time, pictures and gabble about the Abrazo top.

<3

This pattern is available for free from Lionbrand.com.

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The next top on my roster is the lovely Pulina in Berroco Karma. Now, as much as I admired this pattern, I was annoyed that I couldn’t find a similar-but-cheaper wool to do it in. So I sucked it up and bought the actual wool the pattern calls for.

I think it took me a total of three days to knit up — even with the fussiness of tape yarn, it was straight garter stitch for the body, and that took little to no time. The hardest challenge I had was in how to best join the front and the back without making a nasty visible seam. I’m fairly confident in joining stockinette edge to edge, but this was my first go on something that was pure garter. It came out perfectly well after reading around online and finding guidance (smile to frown, yo!). I’d be tempted to do it again in another colour, but as the yarn has been discontinued, it’s getting increasingly difficult to find the various shades. Oh well. Considering that I don’t really like having dupes of anything, that’s fine too. It’ll stand on its own unique merits. 😀

Next time, I’ll talk about my ribbed shell, and for the moment, I’m enjoying my first foray into lace knitting… but I’ll talk about that down the line.

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As promised, I’m starting to work through my projects, starting with the lovely Nesoi tee. The designer, Miriam Felton, is (besides being a good friend of mine) an amazing designer and knitter. It made me really happy to pick it to start my knitting for my summer holiday wardrobe.

Now, I won’t pretend that this top wasn’t a challenge. It was my first time knitting with lace-weight wool, which is a fancy term for expensive string. It took me a bit to feel like I wasn’t going to botch it and to get into the rhythm with it, but it’s the sort of pattern that builds fairly quickly, what with being mainly straight stockinette in the round.

The End Result

I pose so pretty, ha ha. The top took me just under two months to complete, which I thought was pretty awesome. I haven’t blocked it I admit, so I need to go back and do that (I’ve only just done my first attempt at blocking today, so we’ll get to talking about that later). I’m hoping that when I do do that as is proper, I’ll find some sleeves, ’cause I like the sleeves in her version, but somehow mine are just not there. Worst comes to worst and if it bothers me, I can always try to embiggen them with some crochet or something.

So there you go — some picture spam, and a recommendation to give this pattern a go. I know that the idea of doing a top can seem imposing, but the actual knitting techniques required to knit this project are on the super-easy side. I know for me at this stage, I’m happy doing ‘straight’ patterns because I enjoy the simplicity of the look. So of course, the next one I’m going to blog about is another simple knit, but not a simple look when it was done. ;D

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Somehow it’s June. Last I posted here, it was March. Barely. While I haven’t been writing though, I have been knitting! Projects include:

Nesoi Tee
Pulina
Ribbed Shell
Abrazo
A shawl
Some toys

In progress currently includes:

A crochet blanket
A different ribbed top
The cross-stitch. Yes, still. xD

It is my current intent to do a post about each project over the next couple of days/weeks with plenty of picture spam! If you are in need of a fix sooner, then check out my Instagram or Ravelry account. The former gets pictures as things progress pretty frequently, while the latter is *mainly* updated. But mainly, this is just me checking in and saying that I’m alive and still crafting.

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Now, most of us will have a queue of projects in mind. I don’t know about most people, but I tend to leave it to one or two projects max, because I don’t want to have too many things tempting me — I work really hard to have one or two things max on needles at a time.

So of course, now I’ve got a queue stretching back like, six projects. Whups.

Now, the first I have had in mind for awhile — it’s this lovely Pulina top in Berroco… which I am actually doing in Berroco. I like many knitters do my best to find the best and cheapest deals for like-for-like wool, but there wasn’t anything else that quite gauged the same. It also by some witchcraft ended up being the best deal because the range is discontinued. Between these two facts, I acted fairly quickly to get the wool purchased and secured in my stash, because oh… well hrm. Firstly, the top is a gorgeous pattern and ideal for my particular style of dress (on the fancier end at that ’cause I’m such a jeans and t-shirt sort of lady). For seconds, it’s a chunky wool/knit, which after my current project, the Nesoi tee (more on that later), I was going to want something that knit up fairly quickly after a project that is essentially #knittingwithstring. It’s going to be sort of weird doing something that’s predominately garter stitch because I have gotten so used to everything being stockinette, but it will probably be a bit of fun.

Mother-in-Law Invades

So, that’s one project. If it were the only one, that would be one thing. But then my blessed mother-in-law got involved in ‘the process’. I was going to a crafting morning at the local Hobbycraft to check out a knitting group that meets there. So as I’m headed out the door from dropping off the littlest with her, she hands me £40. She starts off with suggesting that I could make another cardigan for the littlest, and then sort of trailed off and amended that I should spend it on whatever I wanted. Well shit, how do you fight that?!

So I didn’t. Now, I didn’t find anything that I liked in Hobbycraft. Nor could I get a good internet connection for my netbook, which would have been the first step in spending money in store anyways. I like to find the patterns first, and then try to find the best wool at the best value. The blue is an aran cashmerino blend that I am using to make this ribbed top, while the red is going to be used to make a cardigan for Littlerbit. I apologise for not being able to show the pattern from its original source, but you can see it here instead.

Further D’oh Spending

Now, you might have noted that there is a single button displayed against the wool. Well, that is because Ol’ Raesie here is a numpty and presumed that she was buying a pack of buttons for the low low price of 23 pence rather than a single button. So of course, that means that I ‘had’ to put together another order to justify the cost of shipping (as the buttons themselves came in less than the cost of the aforementioned shipping). I picked up some fabric wash to try, and then decided that what the hell, let’s get a full order made up.

+ = <3

The pattern is Abrazo, compliments of Knitty. I, like usual, found the pattern first and then tried to find the best value wool that would work for the pattern and make up enough of an order to get free shipping. Because that’s just what knitting junkies do, darn it. And yeah, totally a theme on doing shells, but like… I like short sleeves, but I like having a warm tummy, so this is totally going to be a bangin’ summer vacation wardrobe!

The buttons arrived this morning, and I quite happily sewed them on after I finished my for-pay work of the day. The nature of the wool and its striping meant that I wasn’t completely confident that I was going to be able to buy buttons, mixed pack or otherwise, and find enough that worked. I think that the end result speaks for itself — the buttons work well in context, and well enough match the colours of the cardigan itself. As for Littlerbit? She loves it. I guess seeing me working on it for ages and finally letting her pay attention to it… *chuckles* I could probably stand to block it to get a bit more length in the torso, but that can wait until I remember to pick up a mat from my mother-in-law’s house.

Another Hat Like a Cat

Smallhausen decided that she too needed a cat hat like mine — cue buying wool. Quite a bit of wool. Because of reasons.

Pictured: Discount, but nice!

Pictured: Expensive and gorgeous <3

Oh okay, maybe it wasn’t *that* much wool, but it included my most expensive wool purchase to date; that would be the two skeins of the Fyberspates Scruptious Lace in Cherry so I can finally make my Nesoi tee! That’s in amusing contrast to the wool purchase on the left, which is some discount (but not unpleasant) chunky wool that I bought with no particular usage in mind. The goodies on the left were rounding out an order that was a present for a friend, while the expensive niceness was rounding out a later order to get the wool for Smallhausen’s cat hat. Which basically all boils down to oh hey, Deramores, you have done a fantastic job getting money off of me in the past month or two (like, in excess of £100, though a large chunk of that was me filling in gaps in my interchangeable circular needle tips).

Of course, I’ve not gotten to the hat in question — voila:

She was well pleased with the outcome, and even better, she didn’t notice that I’d picked it back and redone part of it after she had gone to bed. You see, the top is done with a three needle bind-off (which I think I’ve mentioned before), and I did it with the right sides facing out rather than in. That meant there was a really sharp line across the top. It was slightly annoying to undo the cast off, but it didn’t take too long and the end result was much nicer looking, and muchly envied on the playground by both classmates and parents alike.

And Bigger

While doing all these things for the kiddos and myself, best-husband told me that he would love it if I would make him a hat. So after a bit of poking around, I settled on Finally, as it looked like a nice simple hat with a little bit of flair. I’ve done enough hats that I could probably blag a basic beanie without even thinking about it, but I’m not mucked in far enough into the design aspect of things to be happy trying to get past the basics, not yet. I am hoping that I can finish it over the weekend, as his birthday is next week, and that would be a nice little top-up (insert rimshot here) to the rest of the birthday wossits and things. We’ll see. I’m not sure that I am going to get any more done on it tonight because my meds are starting to crash in hard, and that rarely works in my favour when I am trying to get more knitting done.

Games

Best-husband bought me a copy of Craft the World for my birthday, and I promptly lost myself playing it for a couple of weeks. Which is to say, it’s super fun. I thought it was going to be a Minecraft-a-like, but it wasn’t. You start out with a single dwarf and a modest stockpile on a virgin world, which you then explore, dig up, turn into a fortress, and so forth until you’ve completely managed to exploit the level, or get bored enough to do something else. There’s a five level campaign mode in addition to general sandboxing, as well as multiplayer in smaller worlds called biomes. I’ve managed to figure out how to get into those without having to deal with other people, so that’s been… fun? Tedious? I’m not sure of the exact word, just that it kept me really busy.

I prodded around a bit after that, and then ended up starting yet another Sims 3 legacy. I don’t know how far I am going to get with that (I’m only at the point of the second generation begetting the third), but my Sims are generally happy and not on fire. And you know, you can’t really beat that.

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Hello, Crafty and Sundry! Happy new year and all that jazz, if you’re into it.

As one might expect, knitting and gaming have occurred. I’m still on the Skyrim kick. I’ve been enjoying the holiday period for zoning out, which means more Skyrim than most other things. I’m level 55, I still have about 2 million quests I can do, and I have a spoon too. My spoon makes me happy, yes yes yes.

Socks Ahoy!

First things first — I finished the socks as of last night. Smallhausen, the intended recipient, was quite happy with them. At least, she says that. I make her things and she puts them somewhere else. I don’t hold it against her; she’s just a kid after all. I’m glad that they fit, that they are in her favourite colour, and that I could make something nice at her behest — because even if she never wears them again, she asked me to make them and I’m happy that I could.

Hat is a Cat

Of course, I might have stopped in the middle for a day or two to make something for myself… which means that I did. My Stitch ‘n Bitch group has an annual Christmas dinner, and we do a lucky dip there as well. We all bring a ball of wool to toss in a bag and then see what comes of it. I ended up with some gorgeous Rowan Big Colour, and the lovely lady who had put it in the pot had suggested that it was enough to make a hat. I was okay with that — a nice fluffy hat seemed a really good idea. And then I thought… cat hat? It took me a freaking day of researching to believe that making a cat hat was so easy, but it turns out that it really is. I used a free pattern from Worsted Knitt and adjusted based on the gauge to fit my head. But really, you knit straight up, stop an inch lower than the width, and then do a three needle bind-off. Really, I think I spent more time picking back cast-on rounds that were the wrong size because I didn’t do a gauge square for once, or because I managed to twist my cast-on. Now, if only I had some snow to christen it with…

A Clash of Colours

Once I’m near to finishing a project, I like to have one or two queued up to consider. So having something on the go for Smallhausen, having made a thing or two for me, I wanted to get something whipped up for Littlerbit. I had clocked this lovely pattern from Rowan, and I figured I could use it to stash bust a bit. After all, I have an infinite-seeming amount of double knit wool around the house, it made sense to try and get through some of it. Over the holidays, I had brought two colours with me to consider while spending a day at my in-law’s house. My mother-in-law is somewhere between a former knitter, and a sporadic knitter, but she apparently still had wool around the house that she wanted to see used up. That’s how I ended up with that Crofter DK back against the screen; I’d brought the red and the mulberry, and she handed me enough Sirdar to make the cardigan and a bit spare. Even if I’m not particularly a fan of the pinkiness, it’s a pretty wool that I know tends to knit up really nicely, so I’m quite happy to take it and put it to work.

Even if I got off to a false start in doing the gauge square (I went in garter instead of stockinette, whups!), gauge was done quickly enough for me to call it close enough and get started. I’m making it a few sizes up anyways so Littlerbit can wear it after she outgrows some of the beauties my mother-in-law made for Smallhausen. It’s been some time since I’ve made a cardigan for a small person, so it’ll be interesting to see how quickly I get through it. When I was updating my Ravelry profile earlier, I found that I had gotten through some projects faster than I thought I had, so we’ll see how I manage this time. If I don’t get lost completely in Skyrim, hee hee.

And if you’re interested in what little Skyrim mumbling I’ve been doing online, you can check it out on my Tumblr. I might write a post about it properly sometime, but this one is getting long and I should go.